


something like grief

by imagymnasia



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dimitri is Tired, Felix deals with his complex feelings like he always does, M/M, how is Mercedes in every fic, someone save these boys from themselves, with a battering ram
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagymnasia/pseuds/imagymnasia
Summary: “You are very good at hiding your true emotions,” Dimitri continued, his voice hushed. Felix found himself watching the prince’s lips as they formed each gentle syllable. “I am, unquestionably, quite poor at expressing them, myself. But I am learning, just as I am learning yours.”“You don’t know anything about me,” Felix countered, but the old heat was gone, white-hot wrath now smoldering ash.“Then tell me,” he said, plaintive blue meeting cool amber. “Why are you here, Felix?”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 10
Kudos: 82





	something like grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JKRT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JKRT/gifts).



> *SLIDES IN UNDER THE WIRE* It is still technically the 30th your time so I'm in the clear. Happy birthday, J! This one's for you.
> 
> * * *
> 
> _never mind what I said before. I don't want any less, anymore..._

The door to the infirmary swung wide, bouncing off the wall with a crack and nearly shutting itself in Felix’s face as it slammed home. He stalked past it just in time, the heavy door brushing the edge of his cape as he strode forward, eyes burning like the afterimage of a lightning strike.

It wasn’t truly the infirmary— not clean and cozy like at the monastery. Maybe it had _been_ cozy, once, but Felix found no comfort in this room, surrounded by dust and the possessions of long-gone strangers. One of their scouts had discovered the abandoned farmstead this afternoon, and the Professor had ordered them to camp there for the evening; the fields now bloomed with tents instead of crops— the flowers of wartime. It put Felix on edge, being in this place, seeing the direct effects of their war… But his mood had been spoiled long before the homestead had come into view.

“Felix!”

Mercedes, clutching her chest with one hand while the other hovered over her patient’s shoulder, glanced at the door and then met his eyes. He should have cowed under that look— the one that dared him to further disturb her healing sanctuary and asked if all this stomping and slamming doors like a toddler was truly necessary— but Felix was a hurricane, destructive and furious and unstoppable, and he was prepared to rail against the walls of her disapproval if he had to.

“The hell was _that?”_

The question was not directed at Mercedes but her charge. Dimitri, prince of Faerghus, lay shirtless on the medical cot, his wounded shoulder still slowly seeping blood and his back turned to both Mercedes and the door. That meant he was also facing away from Felix, and the swordsman was not about to let him hide.

“Answer me, boar,” Felix snapped, planting himself next to the cot and ignoring the hard edge in Mercie’s blue eyes.

Dimitri sighed, and though Felix couldn’t see his face he was sure the man wore that insufferably resigned expression he hated so much.

“It’s fine, Mercedes,” Dimitri assured her, heaving himself upright with no care for the wound.

“But you’re still bleeding—”

“I can barely feel it.” He offered her the slightest smile, rolling his injured shoulder to demonstrate. His good eye met Felix's, weariness apparent behind the forced crinkle at the corners. “You’ve done more than enough already.”

“But—”

“Thank you, Mercedes.”

That was a clear dismissal, but Mercedes did not move. She stared at Dimitri, then at Felix, then shook her head. "If that's how you two want to play, I can't stop you. But I also don't advise it."

"Thank you," Dimitri repeated, his smile growing in something like amusement. "This won't take long."

His tone hadn’t been threatening, but something about it set Felix on edge. He gritted his teeth and sneered. He wasn't afraid of the boar prince. The boar should be afraid of _him_.

The door clicked shut behind Mercedes, and a tense silence filled the room in her absence.

Dimitri lowered himself to the cot, long legs cocked awkwardly at the low angle as he leaned his bare arms on his knees. Most chairs weren’t tall enough for Dimitri, but the cot was barely a foot from the ground and certainly not two; it was an ill fit, to be sure, and made him look like a gangly, bare-chested teenager forced to sit on a child’s stool. 

"You should apologize,” said the prince. "Mercedes did not deserve that.”

"Don't lecture me, boar," Felix snarled. "You're the last person I need to hear such things from."

Dimitri sighed. "What do you _want_ , Felix?"

The prince fixed him with that eye again. He looked tired, as ever; though the dark circles of his many sleepless nights had faded, there was always a bone-deep weariness to Dimitri that made Felix’s stomach clench. Felix had yet to put a name to that emotion— it certainly wasn’t _concern_ , but neither was it wholly anger. He chose not to think about it. It would sort itself out or it wouldn’t.

"I want you to answer my question."

Dimitri waved a hand in dismissal. "Remind me?"

" _Remind—_ " Felix nearly choked on the words. "Have you already forgotten?"

"Do you mean— how did you put it? ’The hell was that’?" Dimitri parrotted, tone still unimpressed and weary. "You'll have to be more specific, Felix. I’m too tired to play your guessing games.”

"They're not games!" Felix was across the room in a moment with no memory of telling his legs to move. Dimitri raised an eyebrow in response, the only change in his expression. Then he held up a hand.

“You storm in,” and one finger rose, “demand I listen while you lay bare all my flaws,“ two, “and then pretend not to care what I do, so long as I stay out of your way,” three. “Truly, I used to not understand it, but I think I see the pattern now. And what it means.”

Felix did not realize he’d taken a step back until Dimitri nudged him toward himself with his heel; it was not a suggestion, and so Felix followed. Although he was staring down at Dimitri, he suddenly felt very small, pinned in place by Blaiddyd blue.

“You are very good at hiding your true emotions,” Dimitri continued, his voice hushed. Felix found himself watching the prince’s lips as they formed each gentle syllable. “I am, unquestionably, quite poor at expressing them, myself. But I am learning, just as I am learning yours.”

“You don’t know anything _about_ me,” Felix countered, but the old heat was gone, white-hot wrath now smoldering ash.

“Then tell me,” he said, plaintive blue meeting cool amber. “Why are you here, Felix?”

Felix didn’t answer. He didn’t know how— not with Dimitri asking so… gently. This was a new side of Dimitri— or, perhaps, a glimpse of the old, before tragedy and bloodshed had twisted him into the beast. Felix had expected a fight, had come into this swinging, but Dimitri would not be his punching bag tonight. He had avoided the blows entirely, and now Felix didn’t feel like fighting. At least, no more than usual.

He tore his eyes away, and whatever hold the boar held over him began to ease. Felix let his eyes follow the slope of his neck to his collarbone, lingering for just a moment before following the strong line of it to his shoulder. His _injured_ shoulder, and that stoked the embers in Felix back into a flame.

“Ah,” he heard Dimitri say, as if he could possibly understand. It only irritated him more. 

"You put yourself in harm's way today,” he snapped. An understatement, but Dimitri did not let him finish. Instead, he scoffed.

“We are all in harm’s way. Or did you forget we are at war?”

“It was foolish and unnecessary,” Felix continued, desperate not to rise to the bait, gaze focused on the partially-closed hole in his shoulder, how could he not _feel that?_ “Reckless, even for you—"

"I have had much worse." Dimitri cut him off, his hand raised. "Are you truly so upset by such a thing?"

" _I am not upset._ " The words hissed like steam from between his lips, burning him inside and out. 

"You _seem_ upset."

A hint of concern glistened in the blue of Dimitri's eye; it made Felix's stomach turn. What right did the boar have to look at him that way? Something deep within him had begun to ache, something Felix had felt before but still did not understand— did not _want_ to understand, because it felt too much like grief, and Felix Fraldarius had more than enough of that already.

“I didn’t come here to be coddled. Especially not by _you_ .” Dimitri started to respond, but Felix wasn’t about to give him the chance. “I know that bolt was meant for me. A _ballista_ bolt, boar! What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” said Dimitri, and concern gave way to logic, “that of the two of us, I was more likely to survive.”

“Well, I don’t need you to protect me!”

"And I can't have your death on my hands—”

"Whether I die on the battlefield or not, it has nothing to do with you!” Felix spat. “I won't be another of your damned _ghosts_.”

”Felix," and Dimitri reached for him, set his hand on Felix’s sleeve before the swordsman pulled back, “I only meant—”

Felix’s fist moved before he made the conscious decision to do it, the jolt echoing up his arm as it connected. Something like panic rang in his head— _don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me_ — because Felix _was_ afraid now. Afraid of Dimitri and that almost-touch, knowing it would be more than just a touch, more than… something. He wasn't sure. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it. Felix was tired of being angry, but without it, he was afraid he might feel something else entirely. 

“I don’t care what you _meant._ ” His whole body trembled and his hand was on fire, and Felix let that fire fuel him even as the feeling he couldn’t explain grew within him. Felix clung desperately to his anger instead, trying to will the thing away.

“Find someone else to be your martyr. Fraldarius has given enough.” 

Too much. He was burning, he was drowning, he was _dying;_ he had been for years and never known it til now. But he would not give in, not stop fighting, until he’d said his piece. Not until Dimitri understood.

His voice broke. “ _I_ have given enough.” 

Dimitri turned to face him again, slowly, his face contorted in something like pain. Felix was sure he hadn’t hit him that hard, no matter that his lip was bleeding freely. The prince did not reach for him again, although his hand hovered between them, uncertain.

“I could _never_ ask it of you,” he said instead, and the torment in his voice shattered Felix’s anger. It cut him as it fell away, leaving him bleeding and empty. In its place, the thing-like-grief clawed its way up his spine and into his throat and threatened to choke him. It was becoming very hard to breathe.

“Then…” Felix swallowed around the thing. “Then what do you want from me?”

He saw more than heard Dimitri’s sharp intake of breath: the parted lips, the tension in his chest, the way his eye went wide. The boar prince stared at him as if he had become someone else. And maybe he was, he realized with a start; maybe Dimitri was not the only one trying to find himself again.

“Tell me,” Felix said, the words lingering in the space between them like wisps of smoke, hazy and aromatic. “Boar—”

"I want you." The way Dimitri answered, so sure, no hesitation, made Felix suddenly lightheaded. "Just you." 

"You don't know what you're saying." A single, unsteady step carried him backward, away from Dimitri, away from this crushing, complicated, hopeful-painful-fearful _thing_ that lay between them. A hand rested on his hip, firm and steadying and keeping him there as surely as a shackle, and he didn't bat it away.

"I do." 

“How can you?”

Dimitri smiled, the barest of smiles, sad and sweet and wry all at once. “I have had quite a long while to think about it.”

How could he say that? Didn't he know what such an admission could do— was already doing? Because the more Dimitri stared at him, his good eye dark with sincerity and longing, the farther Felix fell. Down, down, _down_ , until Dimitri was inches away, filling up his vision, his strong hands bracing Felix’s back as he stared up at him.

“I thought I lost you,” Dimitri continued, “when I lost myself. But you were always there, weren’t you? You were angry— and you had every right to be— but you never left my side. That,” he said, “is what I want, Felix. I can think of no one I would rather have beside me.”

Felix lifted a trembling hand, hesitant, his fingertips just brushing the silken strands of Dimitri’s hair. The touch appeased the thing-like-grief, made it easier to bear somehow; Felix combed his fingers through it once, twice, and Dimitri leaned into the touch.

“And what about what _I_ want?”

Dimitri tensed beneath his hand. “I know it is selfish of me. I cannot hope to match what you have already given, but whatever I have— whatever good is yet left to me, it is yours.”

Felix cleared his throat, forced himself to look away.

“Good enough.”

Dimitri’s head fell forward with a sigh, resting against the plane of Felix’s stomach. “Felix.” It was a whisper. A prayer. “Felix.”

His hand shifted from Dimitri’s hair to his forehead, tilting his head back with firm but gentle pressure. Then Felix slid to his knees until he was on Dimitri's level, staring up instead of down. He was sure he looked ridiculous— his face too hot, his hands unsteady— but he met the price’s gaze and cupped his face in his hands.

“I accept,” he said. “Dimitri. I—”

There was one brief moment before Dimitri surged forward that Felix realized the man was crying; then there were lips pressed to his, rough and devouring and tainted with the taste of iron, plunging him into a current of longing and brazen desire that stole his breath away. If the weight of that kiss did not bury him alive, Dimitri himself would; the prince’s hands pressed him to Dimitri’s bare chest. Felix buried his fingers in golden tresses, tangled himself in them, pushing him away and pulling him closer all at once. 

They broke apart then, Felix gasping not from emotion but for air. The thing-like-grief had fled, replaced by a different thing entirely: warmth, and satisfaction, and bright, shining hope.

“Dimitri,” he said, and Dimitri kissed him again, mussing his hair with his fingers and pulling it haphazardly from its tie. Felix pushed him away. “Dimi—” Another kiss, and this time Felix shoved. “ _Boar_.”

Dimitri laughed— rich and true, untainted by his madness— and had the sense to look embarrassed. “I am sorry. I am just so…. So…”

“Irrational?”

“Happy.” Dimitri nodded, as if he had considered the word after speaking it aloud. “Yes. Yes, I think I am happy.” He leaned his forehead against Felix’s, his skin cool against the heat of Felix’s brilliant embarrassment. “Because of you.”

“Sh-shut up. You started it.”

“I was not the one to kick down the door,” Dimitri reminded him; Felix was about to protest at the gross exaggeration when Dimitri kissed him again, brief and feather-light. “In fact,” said the prince, “I think you asked for this.”

“I _never_ asked for this,” Felix grumbled. He couldn’t have; he hadn’t known he wanted it until it was offered. That had been part of the thing-like-grief: the not knowing, the yearning for something that couldn’t exist.

But it did exist— now, here, with this idiot man and his bleeding heart. And Felix realized he was happy, too.

**Author's Note:**

> [Will Smith pose] Dimitri Alexandre "If I'd have known all it took to break the ice was you punching me, I'd have done it years ago" Blaiddyd!
> 
> Seriously, though, thank you so much for reading. I know you could have spent your time doing something else, so I appreciate you! If you want, you can always come yell at me @imagymnasia on Twitter. I'll _probably_ yell back. ;)


End file.
